One of Destiny’s first observations on the night was how hot the crowd was for every single hot tag. It’s true, they were — it didn’t matter what was happening in the ring, when a tag team partner (it doesn’t matter if it was Sheamus or Eve Torres) started crawling over with their hand outstretched, people would flip the hell out. A few years of going to independent wrestling shows has trained her well at noticing the sport’s tropes, especially considering that the last Raw SHE attended she got in trouble with her Mom for buying a YOUR ASS IS GRASS AND I’M GONNA SMOKE IT X-Pac shirt because she was like twelve.

But yeah, once the actual wrestling started, the commercial breaks became an aid. They added three or four minutes to every match and made Raw seem like it was suddenly filled to the brim with what I’ve been begging them for. Of course, when you realize the commercial break is happening because Christian is applying one too many armbars in a row, it takes a little of the fun out of it, but still, the opening tag match helped soothe the burn of the Michael Haneke-directed episode of f**king American Gladiators that started us off.

Worst: The Great White

They put it in his TitanTron video now, so I guess there’s no escaping it.

I feel like WWE could just add “shark” to the end of it and do a “viper” thing and avoid me feeling like every wrestling fan in the Bible Belt is simultaneously misunderstanding its intent. I also feel like they should feud him with the fake Sin Cara just so we can have Negro lose to a Great White, and Gatsby can stand on one side of the arena staring at a flashing green light on the other.

Best: Accidental Ring Psychology

Push play on the following video but pause it and let it load. Turn the volume all the way down.

But yeah, the announcer’s played this up properly: obviously Sheamus was supposed to catch him in the chin for the finish, but he ended up countering a Beautiful Disaster kick with a Brogue Kick to the KNEE, and that is accidentally awesome. The only way it would’ve been better is if he’d grabbed a single-leg crab on the limb he kicked and got the submission win.

Worst: What’s The Matter, Sid, Forget Your Skateboard

You know, if somebody approached COO Triple H and was all “what do you need, Hunter, need me to put on a surplus helmet and ride in here on a USMC jeep and pretend like I did something cool”, at least there’d be modern WWE precedent. It’d be up to us to remember that, because we’re cool if we watched the last 15 years of WWE Universality. John Cena bringing up John Laurinaitis’ skateboard all the time is stupid, because f**k, the kids watching this show don’t remember Bret Hart, much less the worse half of a tag team from a competing company from 25 f**king years ago. At first, sure, I thought it was funny, because I was a kid who grew up watching the stupid Dynamic Dudes and cheered when Jim Cornette lit them up with a tennis racket, but eventually even I came around to the reality that unless we Jeritron 5000 the sh*t out of some Halloween Havoc ’89 it’s just pointless.

Besides, the Dynamic Dudes is a Wrestlecrap-level reference. Punk should be namedropping Motoko Baba on the reg, or at least trying to hit him with a Coconut Crush.

Things that need to happen next week.
1. Sam the Eagle and Dolph Ziggler waxing poetic about the United States Championship
2. The Sweedish Chef and Hornswaggle debating #OccupyWallstreet
3. Sweetums arm wrestling the Big Show
4. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew operating on HHH’s broken neck
5. Statler and Waldorf commentating on the JR/Michael Cole Challenge
6. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem playing at the DiBiase Posse Tailgate.

No love for the incredibly incompetent backstage “security staff”? The only thing that made the 25 minute long opening sequence worthwhile (other than the fact that it looks like HHH/Nash will at least be quarantined on the Survivor Series card and not infect anything else with its pointless nostalgia stench) was the two guys initially tending to HHH after he “fainted” – one immediately started talking into the collar of his shirt, and the other one who thought the best way to get HHH medical attention was to shout “PARAMEDICS!!” over and over again.

I agree strongly with one point…aside from just kind of *seeming* like a d-bag, is John Lauriaitis really that bad of a boss? He gave Punk another title shot, and Punk didn’t have to join the KMA Club to get it. Is that really so demeaning to tell someone you respect him? Shoot, I wish my boss were that reasonable when I ask for 15 extra minutes of lunch break, when I need to run to CVS.

Alicia Fox going over is so dumb i dont even know if its worth saying how dumb it is. Its just so self evident.

True fact, i read her name like a minute ago, and decided to post this comment, and still had to go back and look up her name. She is that memorable. Despite that awesome match with the chick who bangs JoMo. And everyone else, allegedly.

I mean i get the strategy, its actually kinda genius and i do love that they seemingly have a booking strategy, but its a waste of Nattie, at least the second best Diva they have. They are putting the other women over Nattie, then have them lose in competitive matches vs Beth, and thus elevating the roster, and keeping Nattie looking strong due to her association with Beth and the fact she is just so clearly a cut above that she wont ever look like a jobber even though she hasnt won a singles match since the Divas of Destruction were formed.

Now they just need to give the rub to actual talent like the chickbusters over Alicia who probably should have been endeavoured during the last cut cycle.

Thanks Brandon for lowering my expectations or rather I should say preparing me. I got tix this morning for my wife and I to go to Smackdown! Supershow tonight in Houston. Having not been to a televised wrestling event since like WCW Nitro back in ’99. I needed some of that to prepare me for the dumb shit I know I will experience tonight. I know going in I’m not going to see (random technical wrestling event reference that I don’t have enough knowledge to reference) but, I just want to be entertained for a few hours for $20.

They wanted to charge me $9 for will call tix. What the shit is that!?? The whole point of will call is so I don’t have to pay a fee to print them or have them mailed to me. I had to pay $5 for something called “Flash Seats”. What ever…

Is it weird that I wore my La Parka mask at a Texans game and won’t at a wrestling show?

As far as RAW, I could not believe long it took them to do 2 sledgehammer spots. The ain’t Heroes…lets get the show on the goddamn road people.

I’m sick of hearing Funkhouser announce his credentials every time he speaks. You’ve been on the show for MONTHS, we know who you are. And yes, the Twitter mentions on air has gotten way out of hand.

That kid in the WE HATE CENA shirt has no balls. He should have been screaming in Cena’s face, not posing for the camera.

So what, I’m immature. I laughed at work at that .gif of Cena’s mouthgasm (patent pending) for like 10 minutes. Great report as always Brandon. I’m glad you mentioned the Ryder nodding thing too. That was almost as funny as when Bobby Heenan said that Mary Janetty was trying to jump through that barber shop window.

I’m so sick of Laurinitis. Not in a “God, he’s such a good villain” way, either. At this point, he’s starting matches just so he can walk out and go all, “STOP THIS MATCH. I’M THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TALENT RELATIONS. I’M THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TALENT RELATIONS. I’M THE INTERIM MANAGER. IN CASE YOU FORGOT, I’M THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF TALENT RELATIONS.”

As someone who spent my Monday night drinking my feelings and watching the Ravens shit every bed in the house, I did not watch RAW. With no context whatsoever, that screenshot of Nash and HHH on the first page was hilarious.

Oh, and thumbs up on the Sporcle reference. Every time I’m done with a quiz I end up thinking, “Shit, I know I typed Primo!”.

They say the best way to become a great actor is to work alongside other great actors. Triple H is clearly taking this advice to heart going from Wesley Snipes to the girl from Modern family to Michael Rappaport and now on to Kevin Nash, star of The Punisher and The Longest Yard. Somebody put this guy in the Expendables 2 already.

I’m going to be honest I vaguely remembered most of RAW because it’s becoming painstakingly obvious that the WWE can just not follow up a good show with another good show. From everything I’ve read and the people I talked to the only people who thought Vengeance stunk were Cena marks enraged he didn’t win. Unfortunately 70% of my gender associates their favorites losing as making a PPV bad.

Everyone was looking forward to night and I know I was pumped and then HHH came out and I wanted to do nothing more than take a fucking nap, but nothing pissed me off more then Dolph and Ryder.

Dolph’s performance at Vengeance was great, he had multiple matches, he retained, and he came out looking strong. Ryder lost, in a match where he looked so excited I thought he was going to pop a boner in Dolph’s eye. So…come RAW Ziggler can barely beat Santino only to get scared off by a dude who can barely walk across the ring without stumbling and Ryder gets to almost Main Event RAW? Lol, no.

“I also feel like they should feud him with the fake Sin Cara just so we can have Negro lose to a Great White, and Gatsby can stand on one side of the arena staring at a flashing green light on the other.”

That whole bit about Trending Topics and multitasking couldn’t be more true. I cannot watch any current WWE production without having something else going on. How did this happen? How did we go from me happily paying $45 for the first time in a decade to watch Money in the Bank to me barely registering that another match was taking place involving Alicia Fox?

The fact that it went ten pages and ended on far and away the best vignette of all (re: Dos Caras mask) made it that much more worthwhile to give Uproxx 10 page views or whatever reason I need to click 10 times to read one story. (Of course, the fact that I click 10 times to read one story must mean I enjoy said story).

Apart from my muppet fanboy post, I wanted to say, nice write-up, great picture of a crappy sign (a personal request), and I fell asleep during the MAIN EVENT!! You aren’t supposed to be bored by the main event. Also, CM Punk sucks now, as you’ve been saying. I’m coming to your side, B, on this issue.

I do find it hilarious that you want Johnny Ace to break it off in Punk’s ass at this point. I don’t know, I’m not as down on him as you are (nor am I as big a fan of him as you are, really) but I can’t deny that Punk as #2 babyface is no damn fun.

The absolute worst thing about Cena choosing the Rock as his “surprise partner” was for the whole show they kept advertising how Rock was going to be competing at Survivor Series. I don’t have a joke here.

@twerp – In that case, Michael McGillicutty negro is the new John Morrison #1.

And for the love of God, the friggin sledgehammers. Why use the one goddamn thing that you can’t even pretend to swing the way you actually would? You don’t bring out a flamethrower unless you want to set shit on fire.

Aside from Nash and Ayches, this wasn’t bad. Seeing as how Punk never even mentioned the match from Vengeance, and Cena was focused on Miz and Truth, I’m almost wondering if they’re realizing the HHH garbage is taking on water and they’re getting everyone else away from it. BAHAHAHA just kidding they’re definitely not doing that.

The Triple H/Nash thing couldn’t possibly be worse. It’s so dumb I can’t stand it. I was expected a reboot after Vengence, but it’s like they did a system backup a couple months ago so they can’t go back any further, so we just have to start here and there’s nothing we can do about it. The only problem is that there was a virus when they backed up the system, so rebooting means we’ve still got the virus and they don’t have anything installed to fix it.

I didn’t mind Punk last night, but I see where you’re coming from. I don’t think Johnny Ace is bad, he’s just an uncomfortable goof ball. Punk doesn’t really have a reason to hate him other than the fact that he’s the guy in charge, so it really doesn’t make much sense.

Anyway, great write up and you should just give me the gift card since I’m probably the only Indians fan that reads this/entered the contest.

Can John Cena please show some signs of being mortal? I understand that you don’t really want the guy who generates a lot of little kid hype to lose, but the fact that he has Final Attack attached to Phoenix all the time is annoying.

Man I have the CM Punk ice cream shirt and even I’m getting tired of him. Am I supposed to be cheering for him? His week-to-week behavior is incomprehensible. But at least I don’t groan when he comes on screen. Triple H and Kevin Nash, however …

So I’ve figured out why these posts are frustrating to me. Don’t get me wrong, I read them (and enjoy them) every week. But you made the comparison to Godfather; you’re right, this is definitely not the Godfather. 80% of wrestling fans are kids or idiots (I’m not a kid. I MAY be an idiot) so dumb-downed sh*t works. Its like doing a Best & Worst of Looney Toons…

Worst: Physics 101
So Bugs puts his finger in Elmer’s shotgun and instead of losing his hand, Elmer gets a big dose of backfire. AND WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE THIS?!!?!?!

If you analyze wrestling like this, 80% of it is gonna be a Worst. I prefer to embrace the idiocy.

Ok I’m done now. Keep up the good work (honestly, I really enjoy this column).

I remember at Wrestlemania 21, I somehow got my section to start chanting “Hogan Sucks” with me when Hulk Hogan came out to rescue Eugene from Muhammad Hassan. Though the main reason I did it was just to piss off little kids, and the best part about it was noting how many people that were cheering just moments ago for Hogan joined in just because being part of something is fun. I don’t go to live shows much anymore because I don’t want to remind myself that I have anything in common with the type of people that go to live shows. example: the people doing the What chant. Great post as always.

I love Sheamus, but wow, the WWE seems hell bent on making it hard for me to feel good about that. Sure, he is a hoss who clubs the shit out of people and stoically says things like, “I’ll foight ’em,” but his uranage back-breaker trademark move is named after a euphemism for having a bottle cap dick (The Irish Curse) and he is now introduced with a name that makes him sound like he’d definitely be a Mel Gibson’s favorite wrassler.

Also, say what you want about the opening segment, but this is fucking glorious:

HHH and Cena should have a match where they take turns reading dialogue from Shakespeare. No violence against the other, but they have to sell the dialogue. So, when HHH says “Now is the winter of our discontent”, Cena has to grab his shoulder and sell pain. Then, when John fires back with “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry”, HHH blades on camera.

That, or they just keep doing what they are doing. Whatever, I have beer.

10.25.11 at 11:31 pm

Mr. Stay Puft

The promise of potentially winning money could not make me sign up. Urging you to give up this nonsensical recap business and simply write what *should* have happened instead did.

Seriously, the mental image of Wade Barrett bursting out from under all those chairs just about made sitting in a fucking mall food court on my lunch break bearable. And the Ted Dibiase segment you wrote last night was ten times funnier than all the nerdy references in every other column combined. I had tears running down my face.

Just got home from Smackdown! Super Show. No spoilers, just some census type observations:

80% of the crowd was ethnic.
There was a 3 kids for every 1 adult.
Only ethnic people buy replica belts and bring them to shows.
90% of the crowd is brainwashed by WWE.

All in all I had a decent time. The 18 black people behind me had almost no idea who anyone was and talked about DX a lot. Everyone that came out was, “that nigga” and Kofi Kingston was, “that black nigga”. They lost their shit when Randy Orton mighty morphined into the Viper. Which in my opinion is the most retarded thing in the entire company.

Oh and in case yall didn’t watch NXT, Derrick Bateman proposed to Maxine in the ring after his match. She slapped him then they made out. It was weird.

Great read, as always. I’m a huge Punk apologist (primarily because so little of what he does needs an apologist); however, he’s beginning to grate on me the past three weeks or so – Johnny Ace is no Vince McMahon, so Punk’s attempts at channeling Austin are almost certain to backfire.

@FWM: I did not write that to offend or inflame. If it came across that way then my subtle attempt at humor failed. But, all that was true and I genuinely find stats like that interesting, as a “white”.

Hopefully that Dos Caras match will inspire that child into evolving past Y U NO SEE into taking a pilgrimage to an older Stroud’s place to discuss independent wrestling, lucha and puroesu. At the very least, the kid will google “wrestling masks” one day to figure out whose mask he has, and he’ll go through a small lucha phase before other stuff distracts him from wrestling.

That was one of the worst RAWs I’ve seen in a while. And they’ve been mostly bad lately.

Is the WWE writing staff aware that the heat you generate from having a douchebag in a suit come out and stop a match is not the kind of heat you want? Nevermind, I know they’re not aware of anything… or if they are, they’ll keep doing it anyway, going ‘lol’ the whole time.

Wow, great job on this report. You should go live more often…highly entertaining. About the kid with the Morrison sign–any chance that was the side he screwed up on and you couldn’t see his final masterpiece? Cuz that posterboard’s mad expensive yo.

You need to get over the Anti-Bullying campaign thing because I think even kids are smart enough these days to know that pro wrestling isn’t real. It’s like the evolved version of the “don’t stuff your friend in to a garbage can and light it on fire AT HOME” campaign from a few years back. They live in a world controlled by physical violence – that’s part of why it’s fun. No matter what they settle things by fighting. They just have to remind some kids that that’s not how things work in the real world, only in the world of pro wrestling.

I’m not sure that it makes sense that a specific generation of wrestling fans adopted the ‘What!’ chant, and now no one can do it because said chant should be left in the past. Like Harvest said above, wrestling fans like to go to shows and yell stuff, which is why I imagine you also yelled stuff.
I don’t like it when people yell and scream for John Morrison either, but it is what it is. Wrestling does not attract the tennis and golf crowds.